http://auto.com/targetnews/articles/Automotive/06_27_2001.reuff-story-
bcbizfeatureenergyconservation.html
FEATURE-
U.S lifestyle change key to energy savings
NEW YORK(Reuters) - It used to take Tom Mollison up to an hour
and half to get to work on the jammed highways around Chicago. Now it
takes him two minutes.
Mollison, a consultant, replaced his 30-mile drive to his office
with a telecommuter's roll out of bed.
By consuming less fuel and avoiding traffic, his lifestyle
change, in a tiny way, could help steer the United States away from
the kind of energy shortages now gripping California and threatening
to spread to other regions of the United States.
But in a country with an enduring love of cars and a thirst for
energy like nowhere else, Mollison is in the minority.
Many American consumers have given little thought to
conservation in recent years. Just look at the rate of public
transport use. It is more than five times higher in London than in
many U.S. cities.
Part of the problem, environmentalists say, is that most
Americans have little choice but to use private cars and consume
electricity.
``People are not being offered a fair alternative, and
conservation is hard to do,'' said James MacKenzie of World Resources
Institute, an environmental think-tank based in Washington.
President Bush, in a plan unveiled last month to avoid more
California-like power crunches, focused heavily on boosting domestic
production of oil, natural gas and coal. Reducing demand for energy
was de-emphasized.
``Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a
sufficient basis for a sound comprehensive energy policy,'' Bush said
recently.
Even so, some communities see no better time than now to plan
for conservation and more energy-efficient development. They see
little choice, with total U.S. energy consumption expected to grow by
a third between 1999 and 2020, an average annual increase of 1.3
percent, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
A BUS RIDE OR YOUR SUV?
A majority of Americans disapprove of the way the White House
has approached energy issues, according to recent polls. Most people
say conservation is a crucial part of the mix in easing the current
crunch.
But real reductions in energy demand will entail sweeping
changes such as working from home, riding public transit, driving
more efficient cars and encouraging alternative energy like wind
power, and it is not yet clear that many Americans are ready to make
those changes.
The transportation sector accounts for about 70 percent of U.S.
oil consumption and most Americans prefer to drive their own cars
instead of using public transit, thus contributing to higher fuel
use, pollution and traffic congestion.
Only 5.1 percent of Americans took public transit to work on an
average day in 1990, the last year with available data, according to
the American Public Transportation Association.
New York City boasted the highest percentage of people using
public transit to get to work that year -- 53.4 percent.
Other cities lag far behind -- Washington, D.C., at 37 percent,
San Francisco at 34 percent, Chicago at 30 percent. Los Angeles,
Houston and Phoenix are below 15 percent.
By contrast, 79 percent of Londoners took public transit to work
on average in 1999, according to Transport for London, the transit
authority in the British capital.
Part of the problem is urban sprawl. More Americans live in
suburbs located farther and farther from employment centers, where
subways or buses are nonexistent or inconvenient.
Federal funding for public transit has fallen steadily in the
1990s, and with U.S. population expected to grow by 20 percent in the
next 25 years, the strains on the system will only get tougher.
URBAN SPRAWL
It will likely take decades to tackle congestion and sprawl, but
some communities are already thinking ahead.
The non-profit organization Envision Utah is advising
communities in the Wasatch area around Salt Lake City -- where
population will rise by 60 percent to 2.7 million in 20 years -- on
how to lower emissions and improve public transit.
``We are advocating more compact development, smaller lot size,
mixed use to create an urban core,'' said Alex Beseris, an executive
with Envision Utah.
The organization's plans would save the Wasatch area $4.5
billion in infrastructure costs in the next 20 years.
``If you want to live in the suburbs that's fine, but let's make
it more compact and offer good public transportation that you can use
to go to the employment centers,'' Beseris said.
Envision Utah is proposing the development of a region-wide
transit system in the Wasatch area, integrating it with new housing
and commercial developments.
The organization also promotes telecommuting, which can save
time and money, improve air quality and reduce traffic.
But it won't be easy to convince people to drive less.
``It would take a decade of serious energy problems and cost
increases before Americans would begin to abandon cars in favor of
public transportation in greater proportions than we see today,''
said Dwight Allen a consultant with Deloitte Research in Washington,
D.C.
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
Fossil fuel not only poses problems because supplies are finite
-- it also pollutes and contributes to global warming. U.S.
greenhouse gas emissions are up 11 percent since 1990 levels.
The Kyoto Treaty, which the Bush administration has come to
reject, calls for a 5.2 percent cut from 1990 levels by 2012 for the
United States.
``We need fuel cell cars to replace the internal combustion
engine,'' MacKenzie said.
Fuel cells create electricity with the only byproducts being
water and heat. American and foreign carmakers are already developing
fuel cell-powered vehicles.
However, the first to arrive on the market will likely convert
hydrogen from petroleum products such as gasoline or methanol. They
will therefore still emit pollutants and greenhouse gases, though
fewer than today's gas-powered cars.
Renewable energy can also reduce pollution and fossil fuel
dependence, with solar, biomass and particularly wind energy plants
promising a bright future.
``Progress is made rapidly, within a couple of years they could
be viable,'' Allen said.
GOVERNMENT SUPPORT NEEDED
Many experts and activists call on the government to encourage
use of cleaner and more efficient energy.
``Put a surcharge on polluting vehicles, use the federal
purchasing power to create a market for (clean energy),'' said
MacKenzie.
While advocates like MacKenzie believe the White House is not
likely to provide leadership on the issue, some local governments are
already encouraging changes. New York mandated that state facilities
purchase at least 10 percent of their power needs from renewable
sources by 2005, and 20 percent by 2010. California subsidizes solar
power.
But free-market advocates reject government intervention.
``We are against the government subsidizing one energy over
another,'' said Myron Ebell of Competitive Enterprise Institute,
another Washington, D.C. think tank. ``We think the markets will
decide which technologies prosper.''
Ebell blamed a possible energy shortage on environmental
regulations he says make it difficult to build new refineries,
natural gas pipelines and power lines.
``The federal government has to remove bottlenecks in the supply
system,'' he said.
Meanwhile, the American public is not happy so far with the
White House answer to the energy question.
A New York Times/CBS News poll showed that only 33 percent of
the public agree with the way the president is handling the energy
situation, while 55 percent don't approve.
Of the respondents, 55 percent said that protecting the
environment was more important, while 29 percent chose producing
energy. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus three
percentage points.
But when it comes to practicing what they preach, few Americans
are changing their lifestyles to conserve energy.
Tom Mollison, the telecommuting consultant, belongs to a
minority of only 9 percent of Americans that work from home, although
41 percent believe they could do so if given the opportunity,
according to the International Telework Association and Council, a
Washington, D.C. organization that promotes telecommuting.
^ REUTERS@
Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited.
Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html
Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address.
To unsubscribe, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
